With the conference championship already in hand, No. 6-ranked Mary Hardin-Baylor tuned up for the postseason with an imperfect-yet-thorough 70-20 waxing of Howard Payne in an American Southwest Conference finale Saturday afternoon at Gordon Wood Stadium.
The win was the 21st consecutive conference victory for the Crusaders (9-1 overall, 8-0 ASC) - a string that dates to 2005 - and it put the finishing touches on their fifth league title in six years.
Next up is their sixth appearance in the NCAA Division III playoffs, which begin next Saturday. The bracket for the 32-team postseason field will be released this morning.
“We are relieved to get this last regular-season game behind us, and we’re ready to go,” UMHB coach Pete Fredenburg said. “We’ll find out in the morning who we play, then we’ll start preparing for them.”
The Crusaders, who were held to less than 50 points only three times during the regular season, scored 70 or more points for the third time despite committing 13 penalties and having a punt blocked.
The Yellow Jackets (1-9, 1-7) offered little resistance. HPU mustered only 6 yards rushing and 254 total, while UMHB rolled up a season-high 661 yards.
“We needed to feel good about ourselves coming out of this game,” Fredenburg said. “And I feel like we dominated them on both sides of the ball.”
UMHB led 42-0 with a minute left in the first half and forced five turnovers, including four interceptions.
Senior wide receiver and former basketball standout Patrick Oliver used his 6-7 frame to haul in three touchdown catches and displayed the form from his days as a high school quarterback on a 78-yard TD pass to Cole Smith.
Oliver looped through the backfield to take a handoff, stopped at his 15-yard line and launched the ball 55 yards against the wind to a wide-open Smith, who hauled it in at the HPU 30 and strolled into the end zone.
“I’ve been wanting to run that play ever since I got out here,” said Oliver, who now owns the UMHB single-season record for TD catches with 12. “As soon as I got the ball, I looked at the cornerback and he was coming right at me. I just set my feet and threw it, and Cole made a good play.”
Sophomore tailback Quincy Daniels (Belton) ran for 138 yards and two scores on just 13 carries, and senior tailback Jarvis Thrasher (Temple) rushed for 129 yards and two TDs to tie former UMHB player Justin Bryson’s ASC record for career rushing touchdowns with 38.
Smith had two TD catches, and Josh Welch and Josh Saenz each had two of the Crusaders’ single-game-record five touchdown passes.
Defensively, sophomore backup middle linebacker John Hamilton recorded a team-high eight tackles while filling in for starter Eric Henri, whose first-quarter ankle injury was one of the few negatives for UMHB. Henri is to be evaluated today and his status for the playoffs’ first round is undetermined.
Hamilton spearheaded a defense that had held the Yellow Jackets to minus-8 yards rushing until Edward Cody’s 14-yard run in the final minute.
HPU quarterback Jason Lovvorn, who had been picked off only eight times coming in, was harassed into two interceptions before halftime and one in the fourth quarter.
“Going into halftime, even though we were up big (42-7), we still felt like we hadn’t played as well as we should have,” said Hamilton, a Temple graduate and first-year transfer via Texas State and Texas A&M. “We needed to go out and play better in the second half than we did in the first half.
“All day long our defensive line was doing a good job because it seemed like every time (Lovvorn) dropped back, he was being flushed out of the pocket.”
Sophomore strong safety Lee Munn - starting for injured senior starter Elliot Barcak - snared two of Lovvorn’s interceptions. Senior reserve defensive end Jason Miller grabbed the other, and sophomore receiver Pi’Dadro Davis picked off Derek Elzner on an ill-fated fake-punt attempt.
It was another impressive performance in a regular season filled with them - UMHB ran the conference table by an average score of 62-15 - but one the Crusaders won’t celebrate for long.
“This team has higher goals than just winning conference and getting into the postseason,” Oliver said.
To which Hamilton added: “We’ve been waiting for (the playoffs to begin) for a long time. This is when it gets serious, and we’re ready to go.”
edrennan@temple-telegram.com
